The late novelist Henning Mankell was interested in the plight of immigrants. We see this over the course of the Wallander stories. Various immigrants of whatever nationalities being exploited. In one of the adventures the villain regularly goes over to Africa to exploit vulnerable people over there. Mankell was a humanist and frustrated and angry with the inequalities and exploitation prevalent in Africa. He himself had spent a lot of time in Mozambique.
This is the final series of the English language version Of Wallander. In this episode we see him jogging in Cape Town. Keeping fit is not something we have seen him do before. He is in South Africa attending a conference but son becomes involved in a disappearance of a Swedish lady. Her husband is agitated and blames the local police of dragging their feet.
Wallander finds out that she got lost due to an incorrect map and ended somewhere in the wrong time and the wrong place. This place being used for target practice for the possible assassination of a rising ANC politician who plans to halt lucrative tourist development schemes.
Kenneth Branagh as usual plays Wallander as subdued, even pained. He is now a grandfather but still has little reason to be cheerful. The series has always been slow burn like many of the Scandi crime dramas. There are some nice set pieces. A more intimate one was the party scene in a cop's house. It was very much like a small party I have been to, I felt Wallander's behaviour very relaistic just look at the way he washes his hands and drys them on a paper towel. I was alo impressed with the big crowd scene gathered for the political rally at the end of the episode, it is a kind of epicness usually found in cinema films. It also allows Mankell's thoughts to weave through the episode where even those politicians who fought against oppression can get corrupted.